If this keeps up, Trump won't have to do anything to punish China's economy

China’s foreign exchange reserves fell yet again in November, thanks to the unrelenting upward march of the US dollar and the yuan’s continued slide down.

Gross reserves decreased $69.1 billion — the largest drop in 10 months — falling to $3.05 trillion in November, the People’s Bank of China said on Wednesday. That’s down from a peak of $4 trillion back in 2014.

This is all happening because money is flowing out of China as the yuan’s value falls, and economists think it will continue to fall on expectations that the US Federal Reserve will raise interest rates.

“Beyond the headline data, other indicators point to increasing capital outflows, and bearish sentiment on the yuan. Based on the change in FX reserves net of the estimated trade surplus and the impact of currency movements, outflows may have edged up to $80 billion in November from $75 billion in October. China’s corporates continue to hold on to almost half of their forex earnings — a sign that yuan depreciation expectations remain high.,” wrote Bloomberg economist Tom Orlik in a note following the data print.

In fact, the government wants the opposite. Since the middle of 2014, the Chinese government has been trying to strengthen its services sector — retail, banking etc — through domestic consumption. It can’t do that, though, if the yuan is weak and Chinese people lack purchasing power. It’s one of the worst case scenarios for the government.

What’s more, declining foreign exchange reserves have historically caused major yuan volatility. You may recall that this was the source of violent market moves at the beginning of 2016 that sent stock markets around the world flashing red.

There’s only one way to stop all this, according to Patrick Chovanec, Managing Director, Chief Strategist at Silvercrest Asset Management:

The only way to stop capital outflows from China is to reform and open the economy. Other solutions are a mirage. https://t.co/9XlZgNMaL6

Reform in this case means the country deals with its massive corporate debt and overcapacity issues, and strengthens the private sector. Fortunately, Chinese leaders want to do a lot of this stuff. Unfortunately, these things are all really hard.